ACQNET v8n003 (January 23, 1998) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/serials/acqnet/acqnet-v8n003.txt ISSN: 1057-5308 *************** ACQNET, Vol. 8, No. 3, January 23, 1998 ======================================== (1) FROM: L. Watters SUBJECT: RE: Credit cards (31 lines) (2) FROM: J. Lindquist SUBJECT: RE: Library statistics (19 lines) (3) FROM: D. Van Arsdale, F. Stumpf, F. Fahey, E. Karsten, C. Moll & J.G. Wee (6 postings) SUBJECT: RE: Gifts (153 lines) (4) FROM: F. Stumpf, M.E. Kenreich (2 postings) SUBJECT: RE: Who uses Amazon (71 lines) (1)--------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 14:36:36 +1000 From: Louise Watters (Univ. of Sydney) Subject: RE: Credit cards I opened a business credit account with the bank via the University's Finance section. They require a personal name not a dept. name for the purpose of a sole accountability. I've had this for a year, and so far we haven't encountered any security problems. As being in Australia, so far away from everyone else, we usually missed out on auctions or secondhand material. We found the credit account very useful, and my staff use the web widely. In fact we might stop subscribing to the publishers' flyers as this takes a long time for a person to file and weed. We order from Amazon and other book vendors on the net. Usually they are not expensive books anyway. The safest way to do this I think is to have a very low limits on your credit, for example, I only applied for $AUD 2,000 hence the most we lose is $2,000. Hope this helps! Louise Watters Acquisitions Librarian University of Sydney Library NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 2 9351 2985 Fax : +61 2 9351 3689 Email: L.Watters@library.usyd.edu.au URL: http://www.library.usyd.edu.au:80/Services/Acquisitions/index.html (2)--------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 11:41:50 -0600 (CST) From: Janice Lindquist (Rice Univ.) Subject: Re: Library statistics In reply to Lisa Knight: While searching for library statistics on the web I came across a site maintained by Elizabeth Mckenney Titus called libstats. This has information on local (U.S.), state (U.S.), national (U.S.), Foreign and Other. The address is: http://131.156.59.13/etst.htm Perhaps this would be of use for your project. jll Janice L. Lindquist (713) 527-4023 phone Head of Acquisitions (713) 285-5258 fax Rice University Internet email: Fondren Library MS 44-A jlindq@is.rice.edu 6100 Main Street Houston, Texas 77005-1892 (3)------------------------------------------------------------- [Posting 1 of 6] Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 11:36:05 -0600 From: Dennis Van Arsdale (Westark CC) Subject: RE: Gifts (ACQNET 8:2) Responding from Boreham Library, Westark Community College: > Date: Sat, 03 Jan 1998 08:55:32 +0800 (SST) > From: Joo-Gim Wee (National U. of Singapore) > Subject: Gift Titles > I would like to know from Acqnet-L users if they count the > number of gift titles received as part of their acquisitions > statistics? Yes. After all, they are part of the inventory, and we use time and materials to process them. We estimate a value, if we can't find a list price. We accept both material donations directly, and money donations (through the College's Foundation) in memory or honor of people or events, and try to match desired titles to the subjects appropriate to the people involved when possible.Donations not appropriate to the collection go into the book sales. > If you do, how do you do it? That is, do you keep a > manual recording system, or are you relying on your automated > system to keep track of the number of gift titles added to your > collection at acquisitions level, or are you using on any > of the MARC tags to account for the gift acquisitions? We use the 590 field to handle our acquisitions info for each copy: 590 FY1998 - copy 1 - 980106 - donation R. Smith - list 19.95 (showing the fiscal year, copy number, date of receiving, name, and list price or assigned value). The 590 field does not display on the card display for the patrons, but is searchable and in the MARC record. Then we use the 690 field for donation information that patrons can search and check in the catalog: 690 Jones, Harry (given in memory of by Robert Smith) 690 Smith, Robert (given in memory of Harry Jones) We presently have an automated system but our acquisitions is on an older in-house program using off-the-shelf database software to consider, order, print labels/reports/notices, and keep a backup file to check for duplicates. We hope to maintain and maybe improve on that when we move to a newer automated system with acquisitions software. I hope this is of some use to you. Dennis G. Van Arsdale, Technical Services Librarian Boreham Library, Westark Community College********* "The opinions expressed and the information provided here or through any connection are not the responsibility of the College or any related service provider." P.O. Box 3649 Fort Smith, Arkansas 72913-3649 (501) 788-7206 -- dvanarsd@systema.westark.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Posting 2 of 6] Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 11:45:13 -0600 From: Fran Stumpf (St. Charles Co. CC) Subject: Re: Counting gifts This is in response to Joo-Gim Wee concerning the method of counting gifts in the collection. We enter the gifts that we add to our collection into our automated system at the acquisitions level. The order record type will show that it is a gift and we place a note in the order as to who donated the item. No note is made in the MARC record as to the donor. We use to make a note in the individual pieces record in cataloging about the donor but we have not been doing that since we brought up the acquisitions module. We do not actually count these items as gifts but as regular books in our monthly statistics. If we needed to count them as gifts, the fact that the order was input as a gift order would allow us to count them separately. Fran Stumpf phone: 314-922-8000 x4439 Head of Technical Processing fax: 314-922-8433 St. Charles County Community College fstumpf@scccc.stchas.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Posting 3 of 6] Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 13:59:29 -0400 (AST) From: Filis Fahey (Mt. Allison U.) Subject: RE: Gift titles (ACQNET 8:2) Here at Mount Allison University, we manually count our gift items and they are added to our annual Acquisitions statistics. We use the DRA system and the only way to get gifts counted on DRA would be to create Purchase Orders (with $00.00 values) and Invoices. That was felt to be too labour intensive, so we devised a Quattro Pro file that we update all year. It lists the Author, Title, Publisher, Year, and Format (book, CD-ROM, video, etc). We also create a MARC record and insert a local call number with GIFT as the classification.This allows us to get a list of uncatalogued gifts. Filis Fahey Head, Acquisitions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Posting 4 of 6] Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 14:39:01 +0000 From: Eileen Karsten (North Park U.) Subject: RE: Gift titles Any gift material that my library adds to the collection goes through the same acquisition process as a regular order. We have set up an account called gift and enter zero as the price. That way at the end of the year, we can get a list of all gift titles added to the collection. We use the Ameritech Horizon system. I hope this will help you. Sincerely, Eileen Karsten Head of Technical Services North Park University 3225 W. Foster Ave. Chicago, IL 60625-4987 (773)244-5585 ekarsten@northpark.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Posting 5 of 6] Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 10:12:54 +0000 (GMT) From: Christopher Moll (Univ. of Hull) Subject: RE: Gift titles (ACQNET 8.2) We create an order record on our Innopac system for all gift titles added to library stock. We can then obtain statistics on numbers of titles and numbers of volumes added, as well as information about material type, e.g. books, videos, compact discs. In addition, we record the name of the donor in the order record. From: Christopher Moll, Acquisitions Librarian, Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX, U.K. Fax (01482) 466205 E-mail: c.moll@lib.hull.ac.uk Phone (01482) 465446 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Posting 6 of 6] Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 14:34:47 +0800 (SST) From: Joo-Gim Wee (National Univ. of Singapore) Subject: RE: Counting Gifts - Thanks At last, I am so pleased to receive some responses to my query on counting gifts with the help of ACQNET-L. They are very useful "tips." To ACQNET-L members who responded so promptly, a BIG THANK YOU for your advice. And thanks are due to Eleanor also who has collated the query in the ACQNET so promptly. Best regards to all, Joo-Gim Wee Deputy Librarian (Technical Services) National University of Singapore [Editor's note: Consider this topic closed] (4)---------------------------------------------------------------- [Posting 1 of 2] Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 12:05:59 -0600 From: Fran Stumpf (St. Charles Co. CC) Subject: Re: Amazon.com Our library uses Amazon.com to order books if we have not been able to obtain an item from our regular vendors but Amazon shows it is available. What we use Amazon.com for the most is verifying our titles being ordered. Our library dropped B&T's Link and Title Source products due to the fact that we cannot order through our Novell network with them. Amazon.com has come the closest to replacing the B&T product as far as looking up title information. When we order from Amazon.com, we prepay the order with a college check. We do not use a credit card. Amazon has also said that they can issue a pro forma invoice if it is needed. The arrival of the items ordered from Amazon.com is no worse than when prepaying from any other vendor or publisher. I like the fact that you get immediate information over the web as to shipping and handling charges when you order books. Amazon will notify you via e-mail when the titles have been shipped or if they are unavailable. There is one big downside with the prepay if the book you want is unavailable. The e-mail notice cancelling the title states that a refund check is being issued. In actual fact, the money is left in your account. This knowledge came to light when several titles that had been ordered by us were sent even before the PO had been cut to send the prepayment! Another interesting thing happened with the past holiday season. I could not connect very easily to their web page. I chalked it up to the growing popularity of Amazon.com and the holiday season. I've had no problem connecting to Amazon.com since New Year. If you need any more information on Amazon.com don't hesitate to contact me. Fran Stumpf phone: 314-922-8000 x4439 Head of Technical Processing fax: 314-922-8433 St. Charles County Community College fstumpf@scccc.stchas.edu +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ [Posting 2 of 2] Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 16:44:12 -0800 (PST) From: Mary Ellen Kenreich (Portland State U.) Subject: RE: Who Uses Amazon.com At Portland State University, we've been using Amazon a lot as a searching tool. We get complete bibliographic information, a current price, and an indication of whether the book is readily available. It's more current than our BIP+ on CDROM. It's great if I'm looking for the latest edition of something or want to know if something is out of print. Just last week we placed our first order with them online. It was the first time we had used our Visa over the Internet. I was nervous but knew of other libraries and individuals using Amazon with no problems. The online documentation tries to convince you that your Visa number will be safe, so we went ahead and did it. The order was for a book going on Reserve for a class starting this week. We placed the order on 12/31/97, spent $10.00 for next day UPS and received it in Acquisitions on Monday, 1/5. The staff member placing the order received an email confirming receipt of the order, and another email when the item was shipped giving a package tracking number. I was very satisfied with the service. We'll use them again for rush order books. Mary Ellen Kenreich Acquisitions Librarian Portland State Univ. (503) 725-5780 ****** END OF FILE ****** ACQNET, Vol. 8, No. 3 ****** END OF FILE ******